


The Language of Flowers

by regolithheart



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Heartache, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26979184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regolithheart/pseuds/regolithheart
Summary: Modern Flower Shop AU.Azriel Singer is back in Boston after living aboard for four months. He could never have predicted how a small change to his neighborhood could affect his life so much.
Relationships: Elain Archeron/Azriel
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	The Language of Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Full disclosure, I wrote this on a whim because I couldn’t get the flower shop scene out of my head. It might be a thing, it might not. I guess it depends on the response and if I can figure out the rest of the story. Also SLOW BURN. I know, I’m trash.

“Shit.”

Azriel glanced down at his watch as he fished his phone from his coat pocket. He was running on four hours of sleep, jet-lagged, and already late. He just didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with whoever was calling him now, especially not—

The noise of clinking glasses and chatter hit him before the familiar timber of his best friend’s voice came through the line. “Welcome home, buddy! Come join us at Rita’s. Mor’s already here and Rhys is on his way.”

“Hi Azzzzz!” He heard Mor calling, voice muffled by music and laughter. “Come play with us!”

He felt a tug on his chest. God, he had missed them, but… “Can’t. I’m meeting Vassa and I’m already late.”

“The more the merrier. We’ll have shots waiting for you!” From the ring in Cassian’s voice, it sounded as though they’d already started.

Azriel shook his head. As much as he wanted to see his family, especially after a third of a year living abroad, he didn’t think his girlfriend would appreciate the delay in their reunion. And to be honest, he didn’t want to spend his first night back in Boston in a crowded bar yelling over the noise—which was exactly the type of place Rita’s was.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

To Azriel’s relief, Cassian didn’t push. “Okay, we get it. Call me, yeah?”

“Sure.”

The call ended and when Azriel saw the time, he swore again. Normally he’d walk the mile to Vassa’s apartment, but the eleven-hour flight, two-hour layover and six-hour time-change had taken it all out of him. He scanned the busy street for an empty taxi, arm ready to hail one, when he noticed the pink storefront caddy corner to him.

Checking the time again, Azriel threw caution to the wind and looked both ways before crossing the street. If he was already late…

A cheery bell jingled when he pushed past the front door and he thought he heard someone call out a greeting from the back, but when he stretched his neck to look, no one was there. Or rather, it was impossible to see if anyone was back there.

The shop was tiny—a sliver of space between a cafe and bookstore—and would have disappeared into the surrounding stone and woodwork had it not been for the blush pink exterior. In fact, the only reason why Azriel had known this store wasn’t part of the cafe was because he had been there once before, back when it had been a 24-hour print shop. But that had been a year ago, and there had been a vacancy before he had left for Barcelona.

The shop was definitely new and if Azriel hadn’t known his neighborhood so well, the faint smell of fresh paint would have given it away. Of course, he was surprised he could smell anything beyond the riotous blooms surrounding him.

Despite the tiny footprint, whoever owned this flower shop had managed to fill every possible inch with buckets of blooms, some familiar to Azriel, but a lot, he had to admit he’d never seen before in his life. There was vegetation of all shapes and sizes, and various groupings of containers that housed arrays of branches, twigs and even palm fronds, which was exactly the thing that was blocking his view of the counter in the back.

“Do you need any help?” The disembodied voice called out.

Tearing his eyes away from the unique pre-made bouquets and terrariums sitting in glittery vases on a display table, Azriel was beginning to wonder if he’d be able to find what he was looking for.

“Uh…Do you have any roses?”

The voice sounded amused. “Back here.”

Stepping past the palm fronds revealed who Azriel assumed was the shop owner behind the counter—her back to him—and even more buckets of flowers, but at least these Azriel could name. He spotted the roses right away, but was surprised to see how many varieties there were and how many shades of red he had to choose from.

Deciding that it was best to keep it simple, he chose a dozen of the most classic red roses he could find and cleared his throat as he stepped to the counter.

“Just one second,” the woman called over her shoulder. “One….second…”

Under any other circumstances, Azriel would have been patient—he always was, but with his body already on edge, he could feel his nerves beginning to fray as he watched the woman hold an oversized bouquet in one hand and with the other, deliberate the best placement for a dusty pink Delilah by angling it back and forth into various positions, all while humming to herself.

His fingers began tapping on the counter impatiently on their own accord. Yanking his hand back, he looked up sheepishly, but the shop owner still had not turned around.

“There. Perfect!”

To Azriel’s relief, the woman tied off the bouquet quickly and placed it in an awaiting vase before turning around.

Warm brown eyes like pools of caramel greeted him and any irritation Azriel had been feeling before fizzled out completely.

The woman gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. Normally I would have stopped to help sooner, but I’m dealing with a bit of a bridezilla and I couldn’t let two hours to go waste.”

Azriel looked past her shoulder to the bouquet. “That took you two hours?” Hearing the words as he said them, he paled. “I mean—I didn’t mean—“

The shop owner only smiled at him and stepped aside to give him a better look at the bouquet. “Does it say, Texas girl meets East Coast boy?”

Azriel examined the arrangement. There were large white roses with frilly edges interlaced with smaller ones, the palest of yellows. There were dusty pink Delilahs, tiny blue blooms that reminded him of hydrangeas and a mixture of green stems and leaves that balanced everything out.Even though he knew almost nothing about flowers, he chuckled when he realized she’d been absolutely right.

“How’d you do that?”

The woman smiled, her eyes twinkling and leaned in as if to share a secret. “Flowers can talk.”

Azriel’s eyebrows creased, unable to tell if she was trying to yank his chain.

“It’s true!” Her smile revealed dimples in her heart-shaped face. “Did you know the Victorians used to send coded messages via flower bouquets?”

“You mean like…spies?”

Her laugh was as clear and cheerful as the bell at the front of her store. “Nothing like that, but maybe just as dangerous. Love notes or even condemnations. You know, things people couldn’t say out loud in _polite_ society.”

“Really?”

The woman nodded, finally looking down at Azriel’s roses for the first time. He let his eyes drop to the counter, too.

“And what do these say?”

She pondered for a moment, her mouth quirking to one side. “What do you _want_ them to say?”

Azriel felt his cheeks warm. He was never good with words or sharing his feelings for that matter. It had taken him almost a full year to tell Vassa he loved her and even now he felt a little sheepish saying it in front of people, especially to a complete stranger.

“Your mistress—“

Azriel’s mouth dropped open to protest, but the woman was already scooping up the stems, a playful smirk on her face.

“Okay, your girlfriend. You love her and…”

Catching those caramel eyes narrowing onto his face with scrutinizing precision was a bit unnerving.

Azriel cleared his throat. “And I’m sorry we haven’t seen each other in four months. I—I was on a business trip.” He felt the terrible need to clarify and groan. “And I’m _really_ sorry I’m almost an hour late.”

That must have been the right call to action because there was instant movement.

“In that case…” the woman began, coming out from behind the counter. She grabbed another dozen before reconsidering and added a third to her bundle. Then she busied herself with an array of greenery and five minutes later, Azriel was holding an esqusite bouquet of red roses wrapped in brown paper and twine.

“Good luck,” she said as she handed Azriel back his credit card. “Next time I’ll help you write a proper love letter.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Three dozen red roses isn’t sufficient enough?”

She grinned. “If you want to say ‘I love you’ and be done with it, that’s fine. But don’t you want to tell her that being apart makes your heart ache? That her laughter is the only music you want to listen to? And when you look at the stars, they shine brighter because of your devotion to her?”

Azriel felt his cheeks burning. Yes, he did in fact want to say all of those things, but it threw him off guard at how easily those words had come out of her when it had taken him months to form them properly in his own head.

Thankfully, she saved him from having to speak. “I’ll be here if you need anymore roses.”

“Thanks…” he hesitated.

“Elain,” she offered, smiling. The warmth of it brightening her whole face.

“Thank you, Elain.”

“My pleasure. Have a good evening, Mr. Singer.” She gestured to the card still in his hand as an answer to his raised eyebrow.

 _Mr. Singer._ It felt so odd being addressed as such and he honestly hated it. It reminded him of boarding school and his father, two things which he could go the rest of his life never thinking about again.

“Azriel, please.”

Elain nodded. “Have a good night, Azriel.”

He gave her a wave goodbye and stepped back outside onto the busy evening street to hail a cab.

* * *

“Vassa?” Azriel called out as he let himself into her apartment.

The lights were low and he could hear music playing quietly from the living room.

“Vas?” He tried again.

His steps were slow, tentative. In truth, despite being eager to see her and mad at himself for being late, part of him was dreading this reunion and perhaps it was why he had allowed himself to dawdle instead of going right to her from the airport.

She had not been happy when he first told her he had to leave for four months. But she had understood that his work required it and that he didn’t want anything to change. And even though they talked almost every day, with the six hour time difference, it hadn’t been easy.

There had been lots of missed calls and emotional voicemails left at 3am, and plenty of days and conversations that had left him feeling exhausted and drained. But they had always found their way back to each other. Azriel was always quick to apologize and Vassa was equally quick to put things behind them.

There really wasn’t anything for Azriel to fret over. They’ve been having a good spell, great even, but there was still that worry about seeing her again and being in the same room for the first time in such a long time. Perhaps it was all in his head—his anxiety working against him. Always that whisper in the back of his mind, making him expect the worst so that it wouldn’t come as a surprise when it did happen.

Walking past the kitchen and into the open living space, he saw the dining table set for two, the candlesticks burned halfway down in their stands. He let out a slow breath, but before he could call out again, he heard a rustle behind him.

“Are those for me?”

Slowly, Azriel turned around to see his girlfriend—her body silhouetted enough by the light from her bedroom beyond for him not to see her face properly and gauge how upset she was with him.

“I’m so sorry I’m late. It’s—“

Before he could finish, Vassa was running into his arms. He managed to drop the roses on the counter before she crashed into him, her arms wrapping around his neck and the sent of vanilla and lavender engulfing him.

He held on tight and breathed her in. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled into her golden red hair.

At that, she squeezed even more firmly. “You’re never leaving again,” she admonished, nuzzling her nose into his neck and beginning a trail of kisses up the long, muscled column.

Azriel pulled back slightly so he could cradle her face between his hands. Her crystal blue eyes shone as she smiled at him and a mischievous grin spread across her scarlet painted lips.

“Are you hungry? Tired?” She asked, running a perfectly manicured finger down his chest.

He watched her face as her lashes dipped, eyes following the trail of her finger down, down.

The blood in his ears pounded, his throat bobbed, and when her eyes snapped back up to him, the joy replaced with desire, he was on her.

All of the fogginess that had collected in his head in the last twenty-four hours had simply vanished and there was nothing left in him but need. He let his hands roam down her arms, her back, her thighs and he lifted her up with ease, her legs finding purchase wrapped around his hips.

Azriel carried her the short distance to the bed, allowing her to remove his jacket and shirt along the way and when he had placed her on the mattress, the rest of their clothes were quickly and easily shed.

He kissed her with all of the want and need bottled up inside him from the past four months and she returned every touch, stroke, every gasp and moan. He spent his time roaming her body with his hands, his lips, his tongue and she made her pleasure audible. He poured everything into her and when they were finally spent, he lazily stroked her hair while she traced the lines of his hard chest.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured again.

“Me, too.” She shifted her head to look up at him. “Are you hungry?”

Before he could answer, before he could ask her to stay, she was already moving, grabbing her silk robe from the nearby vanity chair and pulling her arms through. She leaned over to give him a kiss as she knotted the sash and he watched as she sashayed out of the room.

Azriel pillowed his head with his arms behind his back and allowed himself a perusal of the bedroom, wondering if anything had changed in the time he was gone. His eyes snagged on the small silver frame sitting on Vassa’s vanity.

He felt that sharp tug on his heart, the one he was more familiar with than he liked to admit.

Before he had left, the frame housed a photo of him and Vassa, the two of them in a rare public showing of PDA and snapped without their knowledge by Mor while on a group trip to Martha’s Vineyard. Now it was replaced with a black and white photo of a light-haired woman who looked as though she could have been Vassa’s twin.

Azriel remembered being woken up by the 2am call to hear her sobbing on the other end of the line, begging him to come home. Her grandmother had just lost her battle with lung cancer and Vassa was nearly inconsolable. She had ignored his calls for nearly two whole weeks after he told her he couldn’t fly back to Boston and he was convinced she had given up on him until she called him out of the blue and asked when he was coming home. She had sounded so sad, so hollow and broken that he had begged for her forgiveness and they never spoke about it again.

The sound of footsteps approaching turned Azriel’s gaze.

“Your dinner, sir,” Vassa said, holding out a plate of strawberries. “Everything else is…inedible.”

Azriel gave her a smile as she walked into the room, the bouquet of roses having been transferred to a vase and cradled in her free arm.

“These are lovely, by the way. Where’d you get them?”

He took the plate from her so that she could set the roses down on her vanity. “That shop next to Siphon, the one with the pink door.”

“Épanoui,” Vassa said, pulling out a single rose from the vase before returning to the bed. “The owner’s a bit…odd, don’t you think?”

Azriel smiled, thinking about the conversation he and Elain had earlier. “What makes you say that?”

Vassa shrugged. “She tried selling me a Venus flytrap. Why would she have _that_ in her shop and not tulips?”

Azriel smiled. “She told me you could compose a poem with a bouquet.”

“Of course she did,” Vassa replied, bringing the rose up to her nose. “Did you believe her?”

“I think it sounds…romantic.”

“Of course you do.” Pulling the rose away from her face, she pointed it towards him, the velvet petals brushing his bare chest. “Do you also think she’s cute? All doe-eyed and pouty-lipped?”

Azriel rubbed the back of his head and shrugged, giving her a sheepish smile. “You’re going to think I’m lying, but I honestly didn’t notice.”

Vassa leaned in, a smile on her lips. “I know you’re not lying. You’re too pure.” She allowed herself a full scan of his body on her bed, uncovered and proud. “At least most of you is.”

For the second time that night, her smile grew wicked and Azriel reached over to pull her on top of him, the single red rose crushing between their bodies.


End file.
